Man has been cooking food over an open flame ever since the discovery of fire. Thousands of years later, people around the world still use fire to cook their food, some by necessity, because they may have no access to other means of cooking, and others by choice, believing that food cooked in such a manner takes on a unique and pleasing quality. Connoisseurs of such cooking often make an important distinction between “grilling” food and “barbequing” it. Whereas grilling involves cooking food over high heat for a short period of time, barbequing involves cooking food (almost always some type of meat or poultry) by indirect heat and over a much longer period of time.
Barbequing, it is believed, enhances the taste and texture of the food. In many parts of the United States, barbequing is considered an art. Typically, barbequing involves allowing food to cook in an oven for many hours over low heat to achieve a desired result. Although hot coals have traditionally provided a heat source for a barbeque oven, more recently, electric heating elements have been used as the main heat source, with hot coals being used to provide the traditional smell and taste of the barbequed food. In a commercial setting, such as a restaurant, an oven with a large cooking tray is often employed so that large quantities of food may be cooked at the same time to meet a high volume of customer demands. To ensure even cooking, an operator must periodically rotate or flip over each food item on the tray. This may involve opening a lid or door on the cooking oven and accessing each item to be rotated.
One typical commercial barbecue cooking oven uses a series of rectangular expanded metal cooking trays to hold food items during cooking. When the door to the cooking chamber is open, the cooking tray can slide out to an extended position to allow the oven operator to access the food. However, such an arrangement is not preferable for several reasons. As noted above, in commercial applications the expanded metal cooking tray can be quite large. The large size of the cooking tray makes it difficult for the operator to access the food when it is necessary to flip the food or retrieve the finished cooked product. Even with the tray extended out of the barbecuing oven, the operator must reach to access food items located at the back of the tray. This can force the operator to lean forward over the food, possibly resulting in unsanitary contact with the food. The extended reaching and leaning can be stressful to the operator and can also result in undesired contact with the food or tray. Additionally, an operator who is conscious of heat loss from the oven during the time the door is open is likely to attempt to perform this task as quickly as possible. This tendency for speed increases the risk of harm to the operator during the process. For example, the operator may accidentally touch the cooking tray or the walls of the oven with his hands, arms, or body.
As the cooking tray and food remain stationary during the cooking process, this may lead to additional problems. In particular, a food item may not necessarily cook evenly because it remains over one area of the heat source. As the heat source may not provide the same amount of heat in every location, certain food items may cook more quickly than others, forcing the operator to pay close attention to the food throughout the cooking process. Additionally, because the food remains stationary, if a particular food item happens to continually drip grease directly on a hot portion of the heat source, this could lead to fire flare-ups, which are a safety risk. Furthermore, a flare-up could ignite the operator's clothes or burn the operator as his body is extended over the tray.
As a result, there is a need for a barbeque oven with the capacity to cook various food items and which has a cooking tray configured to promote the even distribution of heat and provide a convenient, efficient, and safe way to access food located on all areas of the cooking tray.